


Before The World Was Made

by pasiphile



Series: This Life Is A Trip (When You're Psycho In Love) [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 02:58:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2371976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasiphile/pseuds/pasiphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Which Jim Faces His Past (and Seb Stands By And Watches)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sebastian

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the same universe as These Violent Delights, and timewise is set somewhere during chapter eight. It ties in with Origin Stories and Mirror Mirror, but can be read separately.
> 
> thank you to koni for general betaing and veleste and curiously-chamomile-queer for Irishpicking
> 
> warnings for: explicit language, explicit m/m sex, self-harm, sadism, homophobia, bullying, reference to child abuse and neglect, torture, murder

 

_Dublin, Spring 2010_

Jim changes according to location.

It's subtle enough that it took you three years to realise, but it's there. He's more flamboyant in Rome, nastier in Moscow, more withdrawn in Stockholm. As if he absorbs the essence of the cities, makes it part of him. He's at his best in London, of course. Insane, brilliant, multi-layered London, which he knows like the back of his hand. It's his centre of operations for a reason.

But ever since you landed in Dublin, he's been... strange. Stranger than usual.

The obvious reason would be that he's coming back home. The Dublin accent is the one that seems to come most naturally to him, after all. Although with Jim, that could mean anything. Maybe he just likes the sound of it. Or, well, he likes his explosives, doesn't he? So maybe he's just tapping into that collective English fear of Irish bombers.

But still, he's edgy.

You almost feel sorry for the city. No one deserves Jim in a mood.

***

"Enjoy your stay.”

Interesting side-effect of fucking Jim for the last three years: you can't hear a South Dublin accent without immediately associating it with sex. It's going to make your time here pretty interesting.

“And if there's anything else you need, please don't hesitate to ask." The girl hands you a keycard with a smile that's surprisingly genuine. She's been eyeing the two of you in curiosity ever since she discovered you'd booked the honeymoon suite.

Jim and his fucking sense of humour.

You reach for the card. The movement makes the sleeve of your shirt ride up, revealing the faded bruises circling your wrist. The girl's eyebrows hit her hairline.

"We sure will." You drop your eyes to her name tag and add, "Aisling,” with a flirtatious wink. She blushes and smiles, a bit shy. Pretty girl, really, large brown eyes and slender hands and a very charming smile.

Pity Jim's so highly strung right now, otherwise you could float the threesome idea again.

A bellboy appears out of nowhere to take care of your luggage and you go back to Jim, who's been playing with his phone while you were taking care of the practicalities.

"We're on the top floor,” you say. “Coming?"

He nods, puts away his phone with one last click and follows you inside the lift. He's being quiet, but his eyes are constantly moving, from the camera to the mirror to the emergency panel. You lean against the mirror and cross your arms. When his eyes meet yours you raise your eyebrows at him.

_Danger?_

He gives an annoyed shake of the head and looks away, lips thinned. So the only enemies are in his head, which is a pity, 'cause you're much better at dealing with the other kind. You can't shoot an idea between the eyes.

Once you reach the suite he flops down on the sofa and closes his eyes, so you leave him to it and go exploring.

The whole suite is practically a cliché come to life, and normally you avoid these places like the plague but Jim demands the summit of luxury whenever possible. The window looks out on the Government Buildings, which might be a coincidence but probably isn't it. The bathroom is carrara marble and the bath is even larger than the one at home, which offers _possibilities_. The bed is huge too, but the sheets are pristine white, which means you'll either have to be careful or risk scandalising the maids.

You take off your jacket and roll your shoulder back experimentally. It still hurts, but it's only been a day since you pulled the muscle – courtesy of a particularly annoying mark who’d thought it was a good idea to fight back. There had been no time to see the doctor, what with the packing and preparing and the flight, but you doubt it’s something serious. A bit of rest and you’ll be right as rain.

When you go back to the main room Jim is still sitting exactly as he was before, head tilted back, eyes closed. You sprawl in an armchair opposite him.

"So," you say, and his eyes snap open. "You gonna tell me what's got you all – ”

"All what?" he says, looking at the ceiling, which admittedly is quite something, carved fruit and vines and flowers.

"Fidgety."

He rolls his head and gives you an unimpressed look. "Fidgety?"

"Agitated. Nervous. Antsy. Want me to get a thesaurus?"

He jumps up and starts pacing. "I am not in the mood for jokes, Sebastian," he says, sounding distinctly snappy.

"Anything else you're in the mood for?"

He stops mid-stride and looks at you.

"The bath is fucking gigantic. So's the bed." You smirk. "Just sayin'."

He licks his lips but doesn't say anything, and his eyes go back to the view. If even the promise of sex can't distract him, then whatever he's dealing with runs deep.

You get up and stand at his shoulder, look outside. It's strange, you haven't actually been in Dublin before, but something about the atmosphere, the people, the sound of the accents...

“Where are you?” Jim asks, picking up your thoughtful mood.

“Belfast. First deployment.”

The corner of his mouth turns up. “Wrong side of the Isle, Seb.”

“Yeah, I know. But it’s similar enough to give me flashbacks. Er, the normal kind, not the traumatic ones, just to be clear.”

He smiles, but doesn't reply.

You look outside. He grew up in the eighties and nineties, didn't he? So he must have been aware of the IRA, the bombings, all that entailed. Maybe even...

You look down at him. “Did you ever...”

“ _Erin go Bragh_ ,” he says, lip curling in disgust. “No, I didn't. Not directly, anyway. I did spend some time in Belfast, though.”

He leans back against you and you wrap your arms around his waist.

“Huh,” you say.

“What?”

“Just realised we might have met. Maybe we even did.”

“No, I would have remembered.”

“Would you? I was a bit of an idiot at twenty.”

“ _Was_?”

You dig your fingers in just beneath his ribcage in retaliation and you can feel his stomach move in silent laughter.

“No, seriously,” you say. “What were you like, fifteen years ago?”

He goes tense in your arms.

“If you want me to shut up...” you say carefully.

“Shut up.”

“Got it.”

He spins around and fists your shirt, and your hands go to his arse. “So,” he says, grinning. “What do you say we break in the bed?”

***

By the time you reach the bedroom you've already lost your shirt, both shoes, and one of your socks.

“Shoulder,” you grunt just before he pulls off your undershirt. “Mind the sh- ” But instead of being careful he literally jumps you, wrapping his legs around your waist. You overbalance and fall backwards onto the bed, Jim landing on top of you.

He takes your head and kisses you, sloppy and eager. You curl your left hand around his neck, fingers digging into the muscles – _god_ but he’s tense, even more so than usual.

He rolls his hips and your hand flies to his arse, pulling him closer. “Get a move on, you - “ you say, reaching for his cock - and he freezes.

You pull back immediately.

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything. Just stays there, half-straddling you, eyes locked on – something. Definitely not you.

“Alright,” you say, folding your hands behind your head. “What is it?”

He shakes his head. “Memories.”

Careful, now. “Bad ones?”

He glares at you. “Do you think I would be like this if they were _good_ ones?”

“I don't know.” You reach up and put a hand on his neck. “You could tell me.” You slide your hand down, rest it over his heart. “Or I could just shut up again, if you want.”

“There's not much to tell.” He rolls off and lands on his back next to you, leg thrown over yours. “Petty cruelty. Power struggles. Stupidity.”

You roll your head and study him. “You're long past that, now.”

“I know that.” His face twists. “But it leaves a mark.” He takes your arm, fingers brushing over the scar from your school days. “I shouldn't have come here.”

“Somewhere you spent part of your youth, you mean? Well, if I ever went back to Eton I'd burn the whole damn place down, that's for sure.”

Jim snorts but doesn't reply. You watch him for a little bit longer, and then you take a fistful of his shirt with your good arm and pull him back on top of you.

“You know what I think you need?” you say.

He looks down at you, expression half condescending, half amused. “Go on, tell me then.”

“You need to stop obsessing over the past and get back to the now.”

“Clever boy,” he says, and he leans down and bites at your neck. You tilt your head back, give him access – something primal, that, instinctive. And he appreciates it, you can feel him grin against your skin.

He grabs the waistband of your trousers and tugs at them, impatiently. He stops when you grab his crotch through his trousers, though.

You squeeze and run your fingers up. He hisses. “No playing,” he says, eyes closed.

“Then lose the clothes.”

He leans down for another hard biting kiss and then hops off the bed again, pulling at his shirt.

“You’ll remember to be careful, yeah?” you ask, with your trousers and underwear halfway down your thighs. Seems silly to ask, but there’s some kind of barely-contained aggression in the way he’s handling his clothes that makes you feel a bit wary.

“When am I ever _careful_?” His belt drops to the floor. “What are you afraid of?”

“Shoulder,” you remind him. “I can’t carry my weight right now, for one thing, so...”

“Doesn’t matter, I was intending to go on top anyway.” He pauses and gives you a faked considerate look. “Unless you have objections?”

 “Have I ever,” you say, laughing, “ _ever_ objected to you fucking me in whatever way you please?”

“Good point.” He kicks off his trousers and underwear and crawls back onto the bed -  and onto you. “No preferences at all?”

“Honestly? No.”

He stops halfway to your stomach and looks up at you. “Really?” he says. It’s one of those rare occasions where he actually sounds openly surprised.

“Yeah. As long as it’s you…”

He rolls his eyes. “How sweet,” he says, leaning down. He places a wet kiss just below your navel and slowly works his way to the side, until he’s got his teeth on your hipbone. You throw back a hand and scrabble at the headboard, looking for something to grab – other than his head, that is. Even though the temptation to just pull him straight to your cock is getting more overpowering with every teasing touch of his tongue.

Jim’s mouth slowly and thoroughly makes it way all across your hip and the inside of your thigh, and when he pulls off again you’re rock-hard, clutching the headboard so tightly it’s making your palm hurt, and panting like an asthmatic long-distance runner.

He gives you a thoughtful, considering look. You take his shoulder and wait it out, making use of the opportunity to get your breath back.

“How’s your neck?” he asks, still in that considering tone.

“Fine, more or less. Are you…”

He crawls up and pulls at your shoulder until he’s kneeling over your face. “Mouth open, sweetheart,” he says, grinning.

You don’t give him the chance to push in; instead you reach up before he’s prepared, grab his hips and take him as deep in your mouth as you can, in this position.

He makes a choked sound and his hand reaches for the headboard, just like you did just a minute ago. It’s a very satisfying sight.

“You’re – ” he gasps, hips rocking as you continue to suck him off with some enthusiasm, “you really are very _good_ at this, aren’t you?”

You hum in agreement, which only makes him shudder again, and let him use your mouth.

Once you’ve got into the rhythm and don’t need your concentration as much, you look up. The muscles of his arm are tense, hand white-knuckled on the headboard. His head has dropped forward, hair sweaty, eyes squeezed shut, his normally pale cheeks flushed and pink. He looks fucking _gorgeous_.

You swallow again and his stomach muscles tense up convulsively – any second now –

And then he comes, filling your mouth with his semen. You keep sucking gently, holding his shuddering hips, until he pulls out.

“Whoo,” he says, blowing out his cheeks. He looks down, pupils huge. You lock eyes with him, and slowly, exaggeratedly, you swallow.

He laughs. “Is that supposed to be symbolic?”

“No,” you say, wiping your swollen mouth. “Just practical. So, are you going to…” You wave at the general direction of your crotch.

He leans back and tilts his head, giving you an amused smile. “And what if I’d say _no_?”

“I’d go to the bathroom for a wank, feeling very sad and unappreciated,” you say solemnly.

He laughs again. “Well, we can’t have that, can we?” he says, eyes widening. He scoots down the bed until he’s almost kneeling at the end. “You’re going to keep still,” he informs you, taking hold of your hips.

“Am I?” you say, one hand already on the headboard again.

He gives you an ironic look, and then he lowers his mouth, and, _god_.

You’d think you would have grown used to it by now. You’ve been living with him for over three years now, and the two of you shag practically daily, that’s, what, three times three hundred and –

His teeth close very gently around the head of your cock and you curse, grip tightening, and lose all track of mathematics.

A lot of fucks, that’s what, and there’s only so many different ways two people can have sex. And yet –

And yet almost every time feels as intense as the first time. Well, not _exactly_ as intense, because your first proper time with him made you pass out, but still. It’s –

“ _Fuck_ ,” you groan, as he shoves a finger up your arse, no warning, no preparation, no nothing. He scrapes his teeth over your cock, almost crossing over into real pain, but then he slides his lips up again, tongue trailing against the underside, gentle as can be. You throw your head back. “You – _fucking_ – ”

He pulls off and wipes his mouth.

You give him a confused look. “ _Please_ don’t tell me you’re stopping now,” you say, panting.

He grins, not replying – relishing your desperate state, no doubt. He’s like that.

You reach for him. He lets you pull him to you and smacks his mouth against yours, pushing his tongue inside and spreading the taste of your own come across your palate, which, all things considered, should probably not be as hot as it is.

You grab his neck again and he reaches down, finds your cock, and starts jerking you off at a hard, quick, tight pace that leaves you breathless in seconds. You try to throw your head back but he grabs your hair with his free hand, holding you still, his mouth still on yours. Not that you can manage enough coordination for something as complex as _kissing,_ right now – you just open up and let him roam where he wants.

He breaks the kiss and leans up a little, the rhythm of his hand not faltering for even a fraction of a second. His dark eyes skip across your face, as if he’s looking for something, or as if he’s trying to commit this to memory in minute detail.

You make a sound that, even to your ears, sounds a bit like a mewl and he grins, leans down again. He bites hard at your bottom lip and his hand does a twisty thing and you arch up, orgasm cresting. Sharp pain shoots through your shoulder but at this point you really _really_ don’t care.

Although, once the immediate rush of the orgasm has passed and you collapse back on the bed, you can still feel a dull pain that wasn’t there before. Well, never mind, it’ll heal.

“Fuck,” you say, running a hand through your hair. “ _Welcome to Dublin.”_

Jim laughs. “Enjoy your stay,” he sings, in a fair approximation of the receptionist’s melodic drawl. He falls down on top of you, his chest against yours.

“If it’s all going to be like this, I sure will,” you murmur, and then you close your eyes.

 


	2. Jim

Seb is sleeping next to him. Deeply, soundlessly - thank god Seb doesn’t snore or Jim would have slit his throat before their first month was done.

Seb is sleeping. Jim isn’t.

He sighs and turns his head to watch Sebastian. His eyes are unmoving, mouth closed, face completely relaxed. Sebastian has the ability to drop off to sleep anywhere, even standing if needs must. It’s a quality – one of many – Jim envies.

He folds his hands behind his head and stares at the vine-carved ceiling.

He isn’t even in the right part of the city yet and already unease is creeping up at him. Doubt. Like Lot, you aren’t supposed to look back at the destruction and ruin you’ve just escaped. You’re definitely not supposed to return of your own free will.

Or like Fae. Maybe he’ll have a fish and chips and find himself unable to take the ferry back. Or go back to find the rest of Europe has moved ahead years, while here only days have passed.

But in the way, that’s already happening. The crisis has hooked its claws into the country, and Ireland bleeds.

Not his problem.

Next to him, Seb makes a small noise. Jim turns his head. Seb’s eyes open, only for a second. Then he closes them again and shifts closer, arm coming up to rest on Jim’s waist.

It’s not properly waking up, and Seb never remembers anything about it the morning after – or he pretends not to remember, but then again Sebastian isn’t that good a liar. It seems to be something instinctual, as if his subconscious picks up on Jim’s distress and tries to do something about it, without any conscious thought being involved.

Sebastian.

Maybe he shouldn’t have brought Seb here, maybe he should’ve come alone, the same way he had left. Dublin is his past, is _him_ , and having someone else see it, someone with enough background and intelligence to be able to decipher it… It feels _wrong_. Should he have left Seb in London, let him keep the home fires burning?

But no, bringing him was the right decision. Arthur had Excalibur, and Cú Chulainn had Gáe Bulg and Jim has Sebastian, moulded and carved to his hand, a perfect fit. Besides, with memories creeping in from every dark corner of his mind, he needs an anchor to the present. And few things are as solid, as _familiar_ to him as Sebastian is, these days.

He puts his hand over Seb’s larger one and feels his own stomach rise and fall with each breath he takes. It’s calming, although still not enough to make him fall asleep.

He yawns and checks his watch. A bit past eight. Pub time.

Enough lazing about.

He sits up and kicks Seb in the shin. Seb jolts awake, his hand already halfway to the gun he keeps underneath his pillow before he registers there is no threat. He scowls. “You could have just woke me up like a normal person,” he says, resentful.

“It’s more entertaining this way. How’s the shoulder?”

He sits up and squeezes his shoulder, a strange inward look in his eyes. “Getting better, but nowhere near fully healed,” he decides after a moment of prodding.

“Alright. Then go take a shower and get dressed.”

He gives a lazy salute and heads for the bathroom. Jim keeps watching his back until he’s out of sight.

A trail of breadcrumbs. A thread, guiding him back out of the labyrinth. Is that what Seb is doing here? Would Jim risk getting stuck here if he’d gone in without his _loyal right hand_?

He gets up and finds his clothes, gets dressed. His pocket jingles as he puts his jacket on, and he presses his hand against it, smiling. Seems only fair that if he’s going down memory lane, he gives Sebastian the same opportunity. Just a matter of waiting for the right moment, now.

He goes over to the window and looks outside, the imposing front of the Government Buildings pale and beautiful and painfully familiar.

Sixteen years since he last was in Dublin. Sixteen years of avoiding the place that had burnt itself into his insides, ignoring its increasingly demanding call. The motherland wants her son back – at least, now that he’s made something of himself. Now that he’s useful.

It sure as hell was more than pleased to spit him out when he was still a penniless desperate sixteen-year old.

He stands up and runs a hand through his hair. A true son of Ireland. It’s shite, of course it is, he doesn’t believe in national identity just like he doesn’t believe in púcas and banshees, but that doesn’t mean… It’s – difficult.

More difficult than he’d thought it would be.


	3. Sebastian

When you come out of the bathroom, Jim is sitting at the window, staring out again. The earlier cheerfulness has completely disappeared, it seems.

“Everything alright?” you ask, frowning.

“Yes. Hurry up, we’ll be late.” He looks at you. He’s tense again, serious.

So you don't ask _where are we going_ , but simply, “Do I need to bring anything?”

“Knife, gun, rope.”

You give him a quick nod and go to your bag. Knife in your ankle-holster, gun beneath your jacket, and a loop of thin nylon rope in your pocket. You rarely leave the house without those anyway, but if he mentions them specifically, it – well, someone's not going to have a good night, that's for sure.

Although it's entirely possible that someone is you.

Jim is waiting impatiently by the door. You follow him down the hall, to the lift. He’s fidgety as well, eyes darting to and away from the mirror, over and over again - like he keeps getting surprised by his own mirror image, or like he needs to constantly reassure himself he’s still there.

The fidgeting disappears when you get outside, though, replaced by his usual controlled unemotional public face; you’d have to know him pretty well to still see his tension. You cough, delicately, but he ignores you. Fine.

You fall into step behind him, quiet, watching him. It's a bit like it used to be when you just started working for him, when he was still a big unknown. 'Cause that's what's going on here: something is different with him, different than anything he's gone through before, and you can't make sense of it. No wonder you're reverting back to old familiar behaviour.

And he doesn’t do anything to help, either. He keeps quiet all the way, shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets. Brooding. And like hell you’re going to disturb him when he’s like this.

Eventually he stops at a back door in a dark alley. “This it?” you ask, looking around for anything of interest.

He nods, but doesn't say or do anything beyond that, so you stick your hands in your pockets, lean against the wall, and wait. Jim, meanwhile, has lost his public face again, but now he’s gone past fidgety and settled on dead-quiet. Like a bird of prey on the hunt.

The cold is seeping through your clothes. You reach for your cigarettes and, when there’s no protest, light up.

Jim steals your cigarette before you can even take a full drag. He meets your eyes and gives you a tiny smile. It’s the first true acknowledgement you’ve got since you left the hotel, and you breathe out, relax a little.

You light another fag and smoke in silence. It would be companionable if it wasn’t still so fucking tense.

After a while a door swings open and someone staggers out, shouting loud goodbyes at whoever is still inside. Once the door is closed he turns, and Jim steps into view.

“Who're - ” the man mutters, squinting. “Well, I'll be damned. Little Jimmy! Look at you, all grown up. What are you these days, accountant?”

“I'm a consultant,” Jim says, and you were expecting him to sneer, to laugh, but his voice sounds weirdly flat.

 _Jimmy_. Jesus.

The man gives a drunken snort and you push off the wall. His eyes go to you. “And who's this, then, Jimmy? Finally found yerself a lad, didya?” He leers. “Always knew you were a bit of a ponce.”

Jim's hand closes tightly just above your elbow and only then do you realise you took a step forward, hands curled into fists, ready to pounce.

“Down, boy,” Jim says, the corner of his mouth curling up into a faint smile.

The man snorts a disgusted laugh and turns his back to you, wandering off. “See ya, Jimmy!” he yells, raising his hand in a sarcastic wave. “Don’t trip over your own feet, now.”

Jim doesn’t react at all.

You turn to him in fury. “You're just going to let him get away with that?”

“Of course not.” He blinks and shakes his head, then turns to you. “Follow him and get him somewhere quiet, and you'll get to fight for my honour all you want.” He smiles. “Why did you think I made you take rope?”

***

Jim finds you a car and the two of you take the bloke - knocked out and trussed up - to a deserted building project near the port. You find the most soundproof room in the building, drag the guy over, and tie him to a chair. He wakes up disoriented, more confused than angry. When he spots Jim he just laughs, disbelievingly.

He stops laughing fairly quickly after that, though.

There's a pattern to it, you’ve learned by now. At first they tend to be angry and threatening, but once they see they're trapped, once the pain is really sinking in, they generally start to beg. To promise, to try and negotiate, make a deal. Anything to make it stop. And once they see that doesn’t work, then it’s time for the despair and hopelessness. They usually start crying properly at that point.

“I'm sorry,” he sobs after roughly three hours. “I'm sorry, Jimmy, I'm – ”

Apologising isn't unusual either, especially with the sort of people Jim deals with. They tend to have lots of things to be sorry for.

“I'm sorry for, for nicking your stuff, sorry for calling you a fag.”

Your eyes cut to Jim immediately. This is getting far too personal for anyone to listen to, even you. He's not looking at you, though, just at the prisoner, with a faintly curious expression on his face. It’s fucking unnerving – no one should look _mildly interested_ when someone’s being tortured right in front of them.

“I'm sorry for what we did in, in the sw - " The bloke breaks off, choking. “I'm _sorry,”_ he wails, but Jim is giving no sign so you twist the knife, and words leave him altogether.

***

You keep him alive for approximately nine hours.

There’s no time counter, no points to be reached, not even surrender – you passed that point an hour or so ago – but suddenly Jim says _stop_ , so you step back.

The bloke blinks up at Jim, blood bubbling from his mouth. Jim meets his eyes without – without _anything_ , no sign of emotion beyond that odd sense of curiosity.

Neither of them speaks. They just stare, and you keep quiet and stay out of the crossfire.

“Kill him,” Jim says, at last, voice flat.

You step up and plunge the knife into the man’s chest, just beneath the breastbone, and then up into the heart. He gurgles, seizes, then goes limp.

You check his pulse, just in case, and look back at Jim. He's staring down at the corpse with an unreadable expression.

“Leave him,” he says at last.

“Shouldn't we at least make an attempt to disg-”

“ _Leave him_ ,” he snaps. He turns around and marches out, and you can do nothing but follow.

***

Once you get back to the hotel you unbutton your bloodstained shirt and check your shoulder again. Putting that much strain on it only two days after pulling the muscle probably wasn't very wise, and sure enough, the swelling has come back.

The bed dips and Jim's cold fingers brush your spine.

“I think it needs a bandage again,” you say absently.

His fingers dig in suddenly into the sore joint and you curse and twist around. “What the hell are you - “

His eyes are distant, mouth a thin line. It isn't often you see him like this, and even then it's usually when he's just awake, nightmares still clinging to his mind.

“Hey.” You take his head, ignoring the painful twinge in your shoulder. “Pull your head from the clouds and come back, yeah?”

Slowly his eyes focus on yours. He reaches up and presses his thumb against your mouth. “It doesn't feel like I thought it would,” he says.

“It rarely does.” You press the bandage into his hands and turn back. “You want to talk about it now?” you ask, head bent, back to him.

“You obviously want to know.”

“Can you blame me?”

He stays silent and wraps the bandage tightly around your biceps. Not responding. On the other hand, there's been no warning either, no telling you to back off, so you decide to risk it. “Why did you let him live for all this time?” you ask. “And what made you decide to end it now?”

The bed creaks as he leans forward, folding the bandage around your chest. “He was the last in a very long list. I was saving them up.”

“And Carl Powers was the first.”

His hands still. You look over your shoulder at him.

“You remembered that,” he says.

“Course I did. So, was he?”

He resumes his nursing. “Yes. Well no, not really, but... He was what set it off. Made me realise I could do it.”

Your first kill. No one in his right mind would call you sentimental but that's a significant moment. Even for him.

“So it's finished now?” you ask. “If he was the last?”

He leans forward again, fixing the bandage. “It's never finished. But I think I've run out of people. Apart from - ” And he stops again, uneasy.

The sun is coming up, sunlight falling inside the room, and your tiredness is finally catching up with you. You fall back on the bed – carefully, to avoid jostling your shoulder – and take his wrist. “Come here,” you say. “You need sleep.”

He huffs a laugh and runs a hand over his face. “I _need_ a lot of things, doesn’t mean I get them.” He blinks, then yawns.

The insomnia again. It’s hardly the first time Jim’s body and mind apparently seem intent on sabotaging him, but it never gets fucking easier. You can carry his bags for him when his muscles ache or take care of the small practical things when he’s going manic, but there’s not much you can do to help when he’s like this.

“Try, at least,” you say, giving a small pull at his wrist. “You never know.”

He gets up to close the curtains, then crawls back into bed and lies down next to you. He closes his eyes, then frowns. “I can still hear him screaming.”

“Yeah, that happens. It’ll fade soon enough.” You put your hand around his neck and pull. He complies with a sigh, pillowing his head on your chest. Hearing your heartbeat sometimes gets him to calm down.

He mutters something, too soft too hear, and then sleep finally catches up with you.


	4. Jim

The next day it’s raining.

A lot of cities turn ugly in the rain, but Dublin somehow pulls it off, in a way London doesn’t. The rain only seems to make her feel more regal, ancient. Or maybe it’s just that he’s used to it; most of his memories feature grey skies, the wet clatter of raindrops on stone. Sunlight and heat would feel incongruous here.

Seb has turned up the collar of his coat and pulled on his gloves. He’s scowling, but hasn’t said a word.

He glances at Seb. “No complaining?”

“About the rain?” He grins. “I was born in monsoon country, remember? I don’t mind getting wet. But I could do without the fucking cold.” He shivers. “It’s fucking _April_ , it’s _spring_ , shouldn’t things be heating up?”

“Not in Ireland,” Jim says cheerfully.

Sebastian sends him a dirty look and stuffs his hands in his pockets with slightly more force than necessary. Jim gives him another sunny smile from underneath his umbrella.

They turn left underneath a stone arch, entering the main grounds. Seb whistles.

“Universities,” Jim says, with a shrug. “They’re fond of imposing architecture, the more ancient the better. The oldest buildings here go back four centuries.”

“Did you go here?” Sebastian asks, looking around at the buildings.

“Yes,” Jim says. Then amends, “Sort of.”

Sebastian gives him an ironic look. “Sort of? Like I _sort of_ went to Oxford, you mean?”

“You _did_ go to Oxford, you just didn’t stay on.”

“And you?”

Jim stays silent. Sebastian gives him a calculating look. “Let me guess,” he says, with a strange, small, private smile. “You didn’t go to school but instead spent your days in the library, teaching yourself, and listening in to the university courses, because your real school’s classes went too slow for you.”

That’s… far too close for comfort. He puts his hands in his pockets and looks down.

“Well?” Seb asks. “Am I right?”

“More or less,” he replies, and leaves it at that.

The memories are clamouring for his attention again. He keeps seeing his younger self from the corner of his eye, sneaking around, listening in, unnoticed and unimportant. But here the memories are mostly pleasant, at least.

He isn’t looking forward to Ballymun.

He runs his fingertips over the rough stone of the wall, imagines reaching across the decades and touching the child-version of those fingers. Ink-stained and quick, already skilled at both lockpicking and code-writing. 

What would that child think, feel, if he saw Jim now? Admiration? Or fear?

They turn into the entrance to the main building of the library, achingly familiar. It’s funny, he hasn’t consciously thought about this place in years, and yet it feels like he was here only yesterday. Youth distorts memory, different perceptions deforming the images stored inside his mind, but there hasn’t been much that doesn’t match his memory so far. Even as a child, he must have been good at objective analysis.

He stops in front of a door and bounces on his heels.

Sebastian looks at the door, then at the little plaque besides it, and then at Jim. “Tell me you’re not going to ask me burn down Trinity College Library,” he says, flatly.

“I don’t _ask_ , I _tell you to_. But no.”

“So why are we here? If not for criminal purposes?”

“Oh, I didn’t say I didn’t have criminal intent.” He smirks at Sebastian, who raises his eyebrows in return. “We’re not here for _arson_ , we’re here for _theft_.”


	5. Sebastian

One of the first and foremost rules of committing crimes is that afterwards you _walk_ away, don’t run, and act as if nothing unusual happened. It’s something you’ve grown very good at over the years, but you still feel a little tingle of triumphant challenge as you go down the street, leaving the crime scene behind.

Jim doesn’t seem to share that feeling, though. He’s gone quiet and thoughtful and serious again, hands thrust deep in his pockets, head down. You follow him, keeping slightly to the right and behind him, an old army habit. Watching his back, covering his weak side – silly, maybe, but it makes you feel better.

He stops at a bridge and turns to face the water, his elbows leaning on the railing. You lean next to him and wait. No time for small talk now, or jokes. Or questions.

He reaches into his inside pocket and pulls the book out. It’s small, old – but not antique – and a little dusty. Hardly worth all the fuss.

You cock your head, listening. No faraway police sirens, no shouts and cries and running feet. They probably won’t discover the theft until someone needs the book again and finds out it’s just an empty cover, the real book long gone.

It’s something about astronomy. You didn’t ask.

Jim flips through the pages – you see a few margin scribbles, but it’s nothing you can make sense of – and you turn your back to the water, taking in the surroundings.

It’s hard to imagine a tiny Jim Moriarty running around here, and yet the city seems to fit him somehow. Old, but with the present woven through it. The occasional shiny glass building amidst the weathered dark stone, and other old buildings restored and repurposed... There’s something _patient_ about it all, as if Dublin could survive forever, adapting and adjusting but her essence still staying the same – the College is just one relatively small part of that.

“Where are you?”

You blink and look aside. Jim is looking at you, rather intently, book back in his pocket. “You fit here,” you say.

Jim snorts. “Other way around. This place _made_ me, of course there’s a – ”

“Match?”

“Certain amount of correspondence,” he says instead, smiling faintly. “Speaking of,” he adds, and he digs something from his pocket and lobs it at you.

You catch a little clumsily, but only when your fingers close on the metal discs do you recognise them. After all, when you wear something for almost eleven years you tend to remember.

“Where the hell did you find this?” you ask, fingering one of the dog tags. Every groove, every nick as familiar as your scars.

He shrugs, watching you closely. No answer, waiting for yours instead. You turn your attention back to the tags.

”Everyone was so happy when they got this,” you say thoughtfully. “Proud. Like it was a sign they were proper soldiers now.”

“Isn't it?”

You glance at Jim. “The most important reason they give you this is to know you're dead when your body's been blown to unrecognisable bloody chunks. I don't see how that is cause for celebration.”

“It's a symbol,” he says, sounding bored. “Your whole identity, summarized in five lines.”

“What do you want me to do with it?”

“Your decision.”

You look at him again. There's something about the way he's watching you, focused but almost as if he's hiding the full intensity.

After a moment of deliberation you take his hand, put the twin metal discs on his palm, and close his fingers over it.

“Interesting choice,” Jim says drily.

“It's a choice I made a long time ago.”

He takes something from his pocket – not the book – and then tosses both the tags and whatever it is into the river.

You watch it sink. ”Another piece of army property ending up in the water.”

“The medals?” Jim asks.

“Bottom of the Thames,” you say with satisfaction. “First thing I did when I came back. They didn't even sink at first, you know, they sort of – _bobbed_. Fucking ridiculous.”

He pushes off of the railing and heads back. You fall in step next to him. “Never would have guessed you to be the sentimental type,” you say, amused.

“It's about closure, Sebastian.”

“Yeah, I thought as much.” You glance at him. “And exactly how much do we still need to _close_?”

“We?” he echoes, softly. It’s a tone that means _danger_ , usually.

You try to let it lie, but after a few seconds your patience snaps and you say, “Yeah, _we_. If you wanted to do this on your own you should have left me in London.”

“Maybe I should have.”

“You can still send me back,” you say, frowning at him. The thought of leaving him on his own when he’s – he’s _unbalanced_ like this isn’t a very pleasant one, but neither is tagging along when he doesn’t want you here.

“Too late now. I might as well – ” He stops, frowning. And then, sudden and unexpected, he grins. “Besides, you come in useful. You make a very pretty distraction, Sebastian.”

“Ah, well.” You smile fondly, remembering the alarmed-looking librarian when you strode into the library and started shouting in a fake American accent, directing her attention away from Jim slipping in quietly behind her desk. “My pleasure.”

***

Jim goes straight to the suite’s safe as you both come in. You leave him to it and go to the bedroom to change.

You sit down, unbutton your shirt, and struggle out of your undershirt. The bandage is still in place, and when you pull it off you can see the swelling's gone down again.

It'll never cease to amaze you just how good Jim is at nursing.

An icepack suddenly comes flying out of nowhere and lands in your lap. You yelp in surprise and look up to see Jim leaning in the doorway, grinning widely. “I think your reflexes are deteriorating, Sebastian,” he says.

“Don't you worry about my bloody reflexes.” You slap the ice onto your shoulder and hiss as the cold makes contact with your overheated skin.

The bed dips and Jim settles behind you. “I mean it, you know,” you say as he draws his fingertips over the bare skin at your shoulder. “If you want me gone, if you’d rather have privacy…”

“No, it’s fine.” He leans in and gently bites at the juncture of your neck and shoulder. You shiver. “You know how not to take up much space, when it’s needed. And...” He leans in again, breath brushing your ear. “You have your uses.”

“You could just hire a prostitute for that,” you say, grinning.

“They’re boring.” He shifts, pressing closer to you. His arm goes around your shoulder, fingers stroking your throat. “And easily frightened.”

You laugh. “Who can blame them?”

His thumb brushes over your mouth, and then he takes your chin and tilts your face to his. Your eyes close and you lean in for a kiss, but he pulls away.

“What?” you ask, surprised. You try to turn properly but only end up twisting your shoulder into something that definitely isn’t a healthy position.

Jim shuffles to the side and pushes at your shoulder. “Down.”

“Fine.” You fall back and hold out your hands for him. He throws his leg over your hips and leans his hands on your chest. You run your palm over his side, grin up at him. “Well?”

He falls forward, leaning his elbows on either side of your face. “How come,” he says softly, “you’re not afraid?”

“Don’t know.” You reach up but he pulls back again, avoiding your hand. So he wants a serious answer? Odd. “I’m an adrenaline junkie, I don’t get afraid, it’s a genetic defect, I’m suffering from a rare mental disorder. I don’t know, Jim, what do you want me to say?”

“You’ve seen – ”

“Yeah, I know, I don’t underestimate you, alright? It’s not that.”

“Then what?” He shifts his weight and takes your chin again. “You see me.”

“I always have,” you say, carefully. Where’s his cheerful carefree mood gone? What’s set this off?

“You…” He trails off.

You stare up at him, thoroughly confused.

And then he fists your hair and smashes his mouth against yours and his other hand scratches down your chest. You grin against his mouth before kissing back. This, at least, you don’t get confused about.

He pulls impatiently at your trousers, not even having the sense to unbuckle your belt – god, he must be really eager. You give him a hand, sliding your trousers and boxers down. He kicks them to the end of the bed and leans back up, kisses you. You gasp as his still-clothed hip rubs against your cock.

He grabs your bare thighs and pushes them open - ah, so that’s where this is going. “Lube,” you gasp, pulling him away from your mouth.

“Where?” he growls.

“Still in the bags, I thi- _Jesus_.”

“Too far away.” He spits and forces two fingers inside you, and you bite down hard on your already-split lip.

He’s been in anal sex kind of mood the last week or two, and only this morning he fingerfucked you dry for what, at the time, seemed like hours, so you can probably take it.

Doesn’t mean it’s going to be _comfortable._

You lift your hips. He works in a third finger and curls them, hurried and vicious. Often he likes to draw this out, making you squirm with need and impatience, but this time it seems less about the process of it and more just a means to an end. The end being, of course, his unlubed cock up your arse.

One last violent thrust of his fingers and then he pulls them out and crawls up, leaning on one elbow. He goes down for another hard kiss, more teeth than tongue. His other hand goes down to tug at his trousers. You reach down to help, pushing them down his hips, and then he bats your hand away again. He doesn’t even bother taking his trousers off all the way, which for him is quite something.

You bend your leg, raise it to give him better access. He roughly grabs your hip and pulls you up, aligning.

And he pushes in. You bite your lip and try your very fucking hardest to relax into it. At least he has the courtesy to go relatively slow. But not the courtesy to bother getting the lube, of course.

Once in, he pauses and closes his eyes. You stare at the vines on the ceiling and fight the mixture of pain and sexual frustration.

Mood swings, again. This morning the sex had been slow and controlled, the day before that had been playful and teasing, and now it’s – this. Maybe that’s why you still aren’t bored with him: he just keeps changing, endlessly, not one time the same as the one before.

His eyes snap open again and you grit your teeth, preparing.

He starts pumping his hips, hard and fast, which usually would be fine but without the lube is fucking _painful_. You arch your back and tighten your hold of the pillow, trying to suppress the urge to _fight back_.

He takes your throat, loosely holding it. His other hand finds yours, fingers entwining and squeezing slightly. Which is good, nice and all, but doesn’t exactly do much for your aching hard-on. Pain isn’t much of a turn-off for you, after all – at least, not this kind of pain.

You let go of the pillow, grab the side of the mattress instead, and try to give in to him, letting him take you and rocking along with his thrusts. The hand around your throat squeezes and you open your mouth, gasp for air. Dangerous games to play, when he’s like this. You touch his wrist and he lets go, leaning on your shoulder instead – the good one, thankfully.

Another thrust sends pain flaring. You make a noise and he squeezes your hand in return. So he’s aware of you, at least, you’re not just an anonymous hole to him right now. Good to know.

You close your eyes. No condom, and that always feels different, more direct in a way. And afterwards the _lovely_ feeling of his come trickling out of you, down your thighs and arse.

Damn him.

He grunts. You open your eyes again. That’s it, the sudden break in his rhythm, the way his breathing hitches and his face twists, the tension-release you know by heart. The expression on his face when he comes is pretty much etched into your mind, by now.

He sags and falls onto your chest. You hold his neck, feeling his chest move rapidly against yours. It would be nice and comfortable, if it weren't for your hard-on being trapped between his and your body.

After a bit, he levers his hips up and pulls out, then drops down next to you. You pull a face. “Ouch.”

“You’ve had worse,” he mumbles, unsentimentally.

“Not the point.” You glare at him. “I’m still having trouble with the fact that this was all because you were too lazy to get up and take five steps to the bags.”

“Oh, it’s not like you don’t enjoy it,” he says, already starting to sound a bit more coherent. He pushes up onto his elbow to watch you.

“Kinda hard to deny that when I’ve got _that_ going on, yeah,” you say, with a nod at your erection, still going strong.

He grins. “The happy little moans were a clue too, of course.”

“Fuck off.” You give his shoulder a little push and he chuckles.

“I know what you like, Seb, so you might as well reap the benefits.”

“A sore arse doesn’t exactly feel like a _benefit_ to me right now.” You shift, wincing, and Jim laughs again. “And why are you always the one who gets to come first, anyway?” you ask.

He spreads his fingers over your chest and licks at your nipple. “Why, are you feeling used?”

“A bit.”

“Well, I _do_ use you.” He turns his head and leans his cheek on your chest. “But you don’t mind that, do you?”

“ _Depends_.” You stroke his shoulder. “You’re sounding better, by the way.”

“Amazing how much of a distraction good sex can be.” He kisses down your stomach, thumb still flicking over your nipple.

“Although you’re right.”

“Hm?”

“I doubt a prostitute would have put up with _that_ ,” you say, getting a bit breathless.

He turns his head and grins at you. “Not as prettily as you, no, that’s for sure.”

“Fuck _off_.”

In response he leans down and licks your cock, starting right at the base and ending with a teasing little flick at the head. You groan. “For fuck’s sake, can you stop being a sadistic little tease for just one fucking second and actually let me come?”

He looks up. The expression on his face makes your stomach sink. “No,” you say, pointing a trembling finger at him.

“Well, I was going to,” he says, all sweet and innocent, “but then you went and gave me an _order_.”

"It was a _question_ ," you say quickly. "A request, nothing more."

"The intent was there, independent of the wording." He swings around and straddles your thighs. “And I can’t sleep anyway, so I might as well spend some time enjoying myself instead of lying awake doing nothing.”

“Yeah, but _I_ can sleep,” you say, a little panicky. “Why do I have to suffer along?”

He gives you a look. “You know why.”

You close your eyes. Of course you know, that’s how it always has been between you – shared pain. And if a good night’s sleep is all you’ve got to sacrifice in order to have Jim be a bit more at ease, a bit less tense…

“Ready yourself, Seb,” he says, laughter in his voice. “We’ve got a long night ahead.”

Well, it’s a price you’re more than willing to pay.

***

The day after you take the bus to – somewhere.

He didn’t tell. You didn’t ask.

He’s also being less – handsy, if that’s the word, than usual. Usually he enjoys people’s slightly startled to reaction to men looking like you two acting all lovey-dovey and affectionate. But today he’s barely touching you.

“Pillars of salt,” he murmurs, pulling you from your thoughts. He’s leaning his head against the window, watching the streets outside.

You blink. You’re intimately acquainted with Jim’s accent, but those words sounded different. “You alright?” you ask.

Jim raises his head from the window and blinks. “Sorry?”

“You were going a bit…” You wave a hand. “Blank.”

“That’s one way of putting it.” He yawns and rubs at his eyes. “God, I’m tired.”

“Well, you did have a busy night.”

He gives you an amused look. You shift in your chair, arse still smarting - not that you regret it.

You look around at the people. Try to imagine a younger Jim among them: leaner, thinner, face rounder and smoother than it is now. Maybe the beginnings of a scruffy little beard. Jeans and a band t-shirt instead of those suits, possibly a Walkman hooked in his belt. The look in his eyes would still be the same, though, that way he has of studying everything, everyone, sizing them up, analysing.

Jim nudges your arm and you look up. “What?”

“We’re getting out here,” he says, jerking his thumb at the window.

You look outside. It doesn’t look like a very nice neighbourhood, reminding you a bit of where you used to live before Jim cajoled you into moving in with him. Building projects everywhere, an abandoned block of flats in the distance, lots of concrete and graffitied benches.

“Visiting the dark underbelly of the city, are we?” you ask.

“Something like that. Come on.”

The bus stops. You follow him outside, then down a few streets - Jim still being silent and brooding - until you reach a clear stretch, a large building project ahead. Jim stops, destination apparently reached.

“This is a shithole,” you say, looking around. You can’t for the life of you think why Jim would want to come here.

“There used to be towers here,” Jim says, softly. “Fifteen storeys high. Mostly demolished now, of course, but they were impressive to look at, in a way.”

You look at him, suspicion growing.

“They’re trying to give it a new impression, erase the gang culture,” he continues. “And who knows, maybe it’s working. All that crime and poverty, just erased” -he snaps his fingers- “like _that_.”

“Right,” you say, frowning at him. “Fine. Is that why we’re here, tapping into the local criminal world?”

“No.” He takes off again. “Come on. I want to see.”

“See what?” You follow after him.

“See that it’s gone.”

“You’re behind this? The demolition?”

“More or less. I pulled a few strings, but this place was going down either way. It’d been a thorn in the eye of Fianna Fáil for years.” He glances at you. “The same’s happening to the Aylesbury estate, you know.”

“Did you – ”

He grins. “No. That one was a coincidence, for once.”

“I find it hard to believe anything surrounding you is ever a coincidence, to be honest.”

“I’m not _God_ , Sebastian. Ah, here we are.” He stops and looks up.

There’s still one tower standing, one last remnant of how this must have looked a few years ago. It’s eerie, that lonely tower, the deserted block of flats on your right, the half-demolished buildings in the distance.

Urban wasteland.

Jim tilts his head up and lets his eye travel the stone length.

“So, it’s still here,” you say, suspicion still niggling at the back of your mind.

“This one is. Last one standing.” He sticks his hands in his pockets and looks over his shoulder. “Mine was over there,” he says, absently. “The MacDermott.”

You stare at him.

“They blew it up five years ago,” he adds, with a small smile. “Saw it on the news, went down in a matter of seconds. A thing of beauty, that explosion.”

“You lived here?” you ask, disbelieving. “ _You_ lived _here_?”

“For a bit. I did tell you.” He gives you an odd look. “I wasn’t born rich.”

“Yeah, but…” You wave your hand around. “ _This_?”

He gives an odd one-shouldered shrug.

Jim, in his three-thousand-pound suit and his shiny shoes. And the graffitied walls, the crumbling masonry, the general air of decay and desolation that isn’t just the result of the demolitions…

He lived here. Before the suits and the Knightsbridge flat, there was this. There was a younger Jim who lived in a council flat and –

And what? You can’t even begin to imagine what life must have been like for him. Would he have ruled his own little kingdom, a teenaged lynchpin in a criminal network, a smaller scale version than what he is today? Or would he have been an outsider, a bottomfeeder, still learning how to fight his way up?

 _Sorry for calling you a fag_.

The latter, then, and that thought is fucking terrifying.

“Come on,” Jim says. “I’ve seen enough.”

He turns back. You give the towering building one last look, try to imagine him inside one of those little flats, looking down at you. It – it just doesn’t _work_ , you can’t combine what you know of him with _this_.

A noise makes you look around. There are kids hanging around, eyeing the both of you in some curiosity. One of them is holding his hand inside his jacket, hiding whatever weapon he owns. You give them a threatening look and they turn back, walk away. Clever enough to recognise a threat.

Crime, poverty, vandalism… Christ, no wonder he tried to avoid the Aylesbury while you were still living there. That place must have given him fucking flashbacks.

“Seb,” Jim snaps over his shoulder.

You give the buildings one more look, and then jog to catch up with him.

***

Dinner is a five-star restaurant, the kind of place you normally only get in with a reservation made months before, but Jim is Jim, even here.

The contrast is dizzying, though. The finely-dressed patrons and the fancy waiters, the wine costing more than an average month’s pay, the genteel quiet conversation and the food that looks more like art works than anything else, and all the while you can’t stop thinking about the towerblock and the kids there, that ruthless depressing kind of poverty. It’s giving you a weird sense of vertigo.

Jim doesn’t engage you in conversation, and you spend most of dinner quietly trying to integrate this bit of Jim’s past into the image you have of him. _I wasn’t born rich_. Well, fine, but you’d never expected him to be born in - well, the gutter, really.

He snaps his fingers, effortlessly commanding, and the waiter hurries over with the bill.

How much has he _changed_ , over the years? How far did he have to come to reach this?

It’s a relief to be outside again, once he has paid. Those posh places make your skin crawl at the best of times, and now, with you still reeling from the implications of all this, and full of empathetic stress because of Jim’s general uneasiness…

You stop at the entrance of the hotel, almost twitchy with tension. Jim gives you an annoyed look. “Well?”

“You go ahead,” you say. “I’m going to have a look around.”

He frowns at you, but after a second or two he shrugs and goes inside.

You do a quick sweep of the surroundings, almost entirely on automatic. Checking if the cars and vans are all empty, then the alleys and dark corners in the streets around the hotel. All clear, of course, why wouldn’t it be?

You put your hands in your pockets and go back inside the hotel, still feeling oddly nervous. You leave the lift for what it is and take the stairs instead. It’s strange, this sudden primal need to prowl, to make absolutely bloody sure you’re safe here. A direct consequence of Jim’s tense state, probably. Irrational, but demanding.

By the time you’ve reached the top floor you’re a little out of breath. You go straight to the room, slide your card through the lock and watch the little blinking light switch to green. Easy enough to break, that lock. But you’ve got your Glock under the pillow and a knife strapped to your shin; you’re ready for any intruders.

You shake your head. Paranoia, nothing more. There’s nothing to fear here. You ditch your coat in the little hallway. No sounds but running water – he must be in the shower again, the little neat freak.

You go to the main room. The door to the bathroom is open, giving you a perfect view of the clear-paned shower. You glance at him, an automatic reflex to check up – the prowling primal thing again. Although there's obviously no trouble now, just Jim spending too much time on his personal hygiene, the way he always -

You freeze, shocked.

The water streaming down his body is tinged pink.

You carefully cross the room and step inside. He's scrubbing at his skin with an alarming ferocity, several little trickles of blood running down from where he's managed to break the skin.

Right. You strip out of your clothes as quickly as you can and step inside the shower. He doesn't react, not even when you carefully pry the blood-stained sponge from his fingers.

“Jim?”

He puts his hands flat on the tiles and bows his head, breathing deeply. His face is wet, but that's probably just the water. “I'm fine,” he says, hoarsely.

“You can try that shit on whoever you want but not on me. Look at me.”

He opens one eye and peeks at you. “I'm fine,” he says again. “Go away.” But then he reaches out and clamps his hand around your forearm, fingers digging in hard

“Fine,” you say, but you don’t move.

He swings you around so you’ve got your back against the tiled wall, and leans against you, forehead resting on your shoulder. No kissing or biting, no suggestive hip wiggling, just… leaning, hand still gripping your arm.

You carefully put your hand on the back of his neck and wait it out.

It’s interesting, whenever Jim loses his eternal control. Terrifying, of course, and deeply unnerving, because obviously Jim doesn’t cope the way normal people would. Which makes it difficult, sometimes, to know what to do, how to make him feel – fuck knows what. Safe? Protected? Calm?

But this time it’s easy. It feels natural, holding him close, just letting him deal with whatever it is, until he squeezes your arm and leans back again.

He tips his head back, lets the water stream over his face. The twitching has disappeared, as has that strange distant expression.

“Yeah?” you ask, carefully.

He opens one eye, catlike, then turns to switch the water off. The sudden cease of the clattering water makes the room feel eerily silent.

“Er, Jim?” you ask, eyeing him.

“Stop looking like me like I’m about to melt,” he says irritably. He steps out and reaches for a towel.

Back to normal, then.

You get a towel for yourself and step out after him. “Cover those up, will you?” you say, nodding at the little wounds on his chest and arms.

He rolls his eyes. “Stop _mothering_ , I’m hardly going to die of a few scrapes.”

“Better safe than sorry. Want me to do it?”

He turns and leans against the sink, wet hair standing up, arms spread, completely naked and not an ounce embarrassed about it. Presenting himself.

“You’re such a fucking _child_ sometimes,” you mutter. You get the first-aid kit out - your own, not the hotel’s, those are always woefully inadequate - and find some dressings and band-aids.

“I prefer to think of it as fundamental laziness,” Jim says. “Besides, I assumed you’d jump on the chance to grope my chest.”

“I don’t need excuses for groping you.” You cut off a bit of gauze and put it over one of the larger scrapes. “So,” you say, “what’s going to happen tomorrow?”

“Well, since you’re asking…” he says, grinning. “How do you feel about arson?”

And despite yourself you burst out in laughter.


	6. Jim

Once again, his memory proves reliable: the building in front of him looks exactly the same as the one he can still see in his mind’s eye.

It’s strange, he would have expected some change after twenty-five years, some modernisation – but then again, the education budget isn’t particularly large, and this one would have been low on the list of priorities. And so it remains, unchanged, another piece of the past frozen in time.

It feels different, though. He remembers it as being looming, threatening, a grey hulking behemoth of a building. Now, all he sees is the shoddy architecture, the broken plumbing, the peeling paint.

Nothing impressive.

Sebastian has gone pointedly quiet and observant again, lost the cheerful good mood of earlier. If he mentions anything, if he pries, if he –

But he won’t. He’s learned that, by now, or maybe he just senses it. Instinct again. Dogs can sense their owners’ moods, can’t they? Maybe that’s what this is.

He picks the lock on the door and steps inside. The smell is still the same as well, although that might be something universal. Gym shoes and cleaning product, the old smell of stone and dust, blackboards and chalk.

He takes a can from Sebastian, tips it down, and smiles as the school-smell is replaced with the overpowering scent of petrol.

He goes down the hallway, still dripping petrol, and steps outside to the playground. He finds himself checking the cement between the tiles. Blood doesn’t wash out easily out of stone, after all. Maybe his is still there, visible between the cracks.

That’s another bit of heathen imagery, right there. A blood sacrifice. Soaked into the ground.

And so is this, of course. A bonfire.

Seb is watching him again. Not doing anything, not saying anything, just keeping his eyes on Jim even more than usual. It’s - good. Strange, but anchoring. Keeps him from slipping into the past.

He wanders through the corridors and hums softly, under his breath, as he trails petrol all over the tiles, the desks, the benches. A splash here, a glug there, until the can is empty and Seb hands him another one.

It’s handy, sometimes, having someone to carry the bags for you.

He goes into a classroom and tears off some of those ludicrous artworks, soaks them all in petrol. It’ll turn pretty when the fire starts.

Wait ‘til they get to the chemistry lab.

He goes back to the hallway and blinks. Sebastian has disappeared, and for one split second panic grips him so hard it feels like his throat is being crunched, his stomach bursting open, bones snapping one by one -

“There you are,” Sebastian says, from down the hallway, and Jim relaxes.

He turns. Seb is looking at a wall of old class pictures. Jim-at-eight doesn’t look much like Jim-at-thirty-two, but Seb is good at that kind of thing. He’s a sniper; spotting things of interest is what he does. And even tiny, Jim is someone important.

Jim steps up behind him, looks over his shoulder.

There he is.

Tiny, eyes dark smudges on the picture. Hidden behind taller, bigger boys. And even on that small picture he can see the discolouration of a bruise on his jaw.

He strokes a fingertip over his eight-year old face.

“You look… I don’t know,” Sebastian says. “Accusing. Like you’re blaming everyone.”

“That’s because I was,” he says, softly, and Seb gives him another one of those looks. Let him look. As long as he stays silent.

Jim carefully unpins the picture and drops it in a puddle of petrol.

No traces.

Sebastian turns on his heel and continues sloshing the petrol over the tiles. Jim follows him, occasionally glancing inside the classrooms. No changes there either, a perfect match for his memories. Like they’ve been waiting for him to come back.

Well, here he is.

It doesn’t take much time before they’re done, the whole building soaked. They go outside again.

Sebastian stands at his shoulder, waiting, watching.

How many times had he imagined this? Plotted this? And yet he’d never realised he could actually _do_ it, go through with it. It took until Carl and the pool before he learned just how fragile it all was. How easily torn apart, and no one else ever saw, ever sees…

Sebastian coughs. Jim blinks, then realises he’s been subconsciously rubbing his collarbone. He drops his hand. Sebastian’s lips go a fraction thinner, before he turns away again.

Sebastian watches, and deduces, and behind those slate-grey eyes it’s all getting put together, every little hint he has dropped over the years, every tell, every trace…

But Sebastian is safe. That's why he's here, isn't it? It's fine. All good.

Jim holds out his hand. Sebastian hands him a box of matches. Jim lights one, and watches the flame flicker and dance in the light wind.

Such a little thing. And such a bang it’ll make.

If you can’t be strong, be smart, and his collarbone aches and in the corner of his eye he can see a small dark-haired boy, crumpled to the ground, eyes stubbornly dry –

His fingers erupt in pain and he blinks, confused, to find the flame of the match has reached his fingertips. He waves it out and light another one. Sebastian shifts onto his other foot.

Accusing. Funny Sebastian had chosen that word, of all words. It’s close enough. Hatred. Resentment. Fury.

All gone now.

He drops the match.

 _Whoosh_.

 


	7. Sebastian

You get back to the hotel still smelling slightly of smoke.

“I’m going to take a shower,” you say, wiping soot from your sleeve.

“Yeah.”

You turn back. Jim doesn’t do _yeah_ s, not unless he’s mimicking some other accent. But he isn’t now. His shoulders are tense, face drawn – not a game, either.

“Are you okay?” you ask.

“Fire is supposed to be cleansing, isn’t it?” he says, frowning. He raises his hand and stares at the traces of soot and ash like he’s surprised by them.

“Jim?” You carefully close the door.

“Can you hear sirens?” he asks, turning to the window.

You suppress a cold shiver. “No. And even if, Jim, we’re too far away, it won’t be for us.”

He blinks, then shakes his head. “Yes. Go on, then, get cleaned up.”

“I’m – ”

“ _Go_ , Seb,” he says, a little amused, a little exasperated. Normal enough. You leave him be.

The hot water of the shower feels like bliss against your sore shoulder. You wash off the worst of the soot, then get out to run the ludicrously large bath, keeping one ear on the living room. There’s the sound of rummaging, a drawer opening and closing, nothing worrying. Normal sounds. Although god knows what _abnormal_ sounds would be like.

You lower yourself into the steaming bath with a little hiss of satisfaction and let the soapy water sink into your skin, your muscles.

After a while you hear footsteps, and the door opening and closing. You don’t look up.

Jim settles down on the side of the bath, outside your line of vision. His fingers run through your wet hair – getting too long again, even though Jim always says he likes something to grab hold of.

You lean your head back and look him in the eye. “What the hell's going on?”

He looks away, expression calm, a little tired. Not gone weird again, but still not entirely his normal self either.

“Jim. Come on.” You sit up and turn, reach for his jaw to turn his head to yours. “Tell me. Why are you here?”

“Because it’s necessary,” he says, pulling away from your hand.

“Bullshit.”

He looks up, surprised.

“There’s nothing here that I couldn’t have done on my own, without you being here in person,” you say, reasonably.

He runs a hand over his face. “It’s not just practicalities, it’s...” He breathes out, drops his hand. “It’s about me being here. About – ”

“Closure?”

“Something like it.” He gives you another tired look. “I need to be here. It can’t – it has to be like this.”

“Right.” You frown at him. He’s still looking exhausted. “Well, are you getting in, then?” you ask. “Water’s getting cold.”

He strips and gets into the bath, kneeling between your legs, facing you. Still in that strange thoughtful mood.

“Can’t you just – let go, for a bit?” you ask. “You need rest.”

He shakes his head, then takes your chin and presses his thumb against your bottom lip. You let him look at you, trying not to flinch under the force of his eyes.

“What do you see,” he says after a while, voice low and breathy, “when you look at me?”

You frown. “I don’t know. You, I suppose.”

He shakes his head. “No. Not that.”

“I don’t understand,” you say, frustrated. It’s been like this for _days_ , Jim spouting enigmatic bullshit and you floundering about like a child, trying your best to keep up, constantly aware of the consequences should you say or do something wrong.

He leans forward, making the water slosh. “What,” he says, slowly, almost sounding like a threat, “do you _see_.”

You put a wet hand on his neck and study his face. Tired, struggling. Beneath that the hard defensive shutters that hardly ever go up, even for you. And…

Oh.

You meet his eyes. “I see what I saw that first time I met you.”

He sighs and relaxes a little. “Good. That’s – good.”

“Now come here.” You pull his arm and he settles against you, back resting against your chest. You dig your thumbs into the hard muscles of his shoulders. “Christ, you’re nothing but knots.”

He hums. “It’s good,” he says, still sounding a bit off. “That you’re here. That I brought you.”

“Yeah. Now shut up and relax.”

He smiles and sinks deeper into the hot water, hand on your knee. You run your hands over his shoulder, then squeeze the hard muscles.

Not entirely himself again, no, but at least he’s calm.

***

The next morning you wake up to an empty bed, and the first and only thought going through your head is _that fucking bastard_.

You get up, get dressed, and search the room. There’s no note, but as far as you can see all his stuff is still here. So he didn’t up and leave without telling you, then. You call the reception desk - no message there either.

He’s just – disappeared.

It’s not the first time he’s pulled something like this, true, but it’s – well, he hasn’t been doing well, has he? And yeah, he’s _Jim_ , but you don’t like the idea of him wandering about alone if he’s in one of his more absent moods. It’s worrying, this sudden disappearance.

You go the balcony and light up. The people below are hurrying along the sidewalk, hiding underneath umbrellas or with their collars turned up in a fruitless attempt to keep out the rain.

Could be that he just wants privacy, but he could’ve told you that. You _asked_ him, outright, whether you should go, and he said no. Besides, most of the time he simply kicks you out when he wants to be alone. He doesn’t go away himself, it goes against his selfish streak.

Maybe it’s some kind of test, just like in the old days when you had just moved in with him. Playing hide and seek. No hints, though, no clues.

Where would he have gone to?

Someone below slips and falls. A bystander stops and helps them back up, a surprising touch of kindness in a fairly reserved, cold kind of city.

You fall back on what he taught you. To predict someone’s actions, analyse their previous pattern of behaviour. So, what’s he been doing? Things to do with his past. Going over different elements, erasing traces – but it’s more than that, isn’t it? It’s something emotional, not just pragmatically deleting a trail.

The rain is stopping, petering out into a pitiful drizzle. Down below, heads reappear from beneath their covers.

The tower blocks, his home. His school as well, his peers, his other education. So what...

Of course.

You take the Yellow Pages from the bedside table and flip to the C.

***

You find him at the second one on your list, at the far end of the terrain. A dark shape, his coat flapping in the wind, smoke trailing from the cigarette between his fingers.

You crunch the gravel, make him know you're approaching. He doesn't acknowledge you, but he doesn't send you away either, so you stand at his shoulder and take a look at the gravestone.

 _Emma Doherty_ , it says, _1961-1982._

It comes down to maths. Jim can't be that much younger than you, so that means teenage pregnancy. And dead at twenty-one. There's nothing else on the gravestone, no _beloved mother, devoted wife_. Just the name, the date. The gravestone is old and dirty, weathered, not the sort of place where loving relatives come to clean every year.

The fact that you're allowed to see this...Well, you don't underestimate the importance of it, that's for sure.

“Your mother died when you were fourteen, right?” Jim says suddenly.

“Yeah. I wasn't – I'd barely seen her in years, I didn't grieve much.” You hesitate. “How old...”

“Five. Roughly.”

“Roughly?”

He snorts a laugh. “She didn't officially register me, too much _bother_. The date of my birth is just one of the many unsolvable mysteries surrounding her. Like my f- ” He stops.

You try to think of something, anything to say, and come up blank. Jesus fucking _Christ_ , this is a minefield.

“That’s where I come from,” he says, softly. “Those are my roots, right there. And you can never quite…” He falls quiet again.

Your family has a marble vault in Highgate. And you can trace your family line back to the Norman Conquest, more or less, one bright unbroken line of noble ancestry.

Just shows how little it all means.

“Are you alright?” you ask. Stupid question, but the only one you can think of.

No reply. He just keeps staring at the gravestone, as if he’s having trouble believing it’s there.

“Jim?”

“They paid for it,” he says, hesitantly, as if he’s trying out the words.

You don’t ask _who_ , or _for what_. You’re already in deep fucking waters as it is.

“Eventually,” he says. “They did pay. I knew they would. I promised myself.” Another stream of smoke. “They paid for it,” he repeats, this time with more conviction. Still sounding vulnerable, though, and the strength of your reaction to that is a little surprising. You want to _protect_ , even though the threat's long gone, even though Jim is quite capable of defending himself. But it isn't rational thought that's making you feel like tearing out someone's throat.

“They don't matter,” you say, almost snarling. Whoever _they_ are.

He shivers. “They used to.”

“They _don't_.”

“They - ” He shakes his head. “You’re right. They don’t.” He reaches out behind him, hand grasping. You step closer and he takes your forearm. Again, like when he was in the shower, clinging to you like he needs you to be his driftwood. Help him stay afloat.

“Come on,” you say. “Let’s go back.”

“You go.” He lets go of your arm. “I’m staying for a bit.”

His accent is doing weird things, like it’s trying to change into something else and he won’t let it. It’s unnerving.

You shake your head. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He gives you a quick look. “Won’t take long. I’ll see you in the hotel.”

“I’m - ”

 _“Go_ , Seb.”

“Yeah. Fine.”

You give him one last look, then turn on your heel and head for the gates again. What else can you do?


	8. Jim

He doesn’t have to wait long.

The crack of gravel announces her arrival. He has to fight the urge to straighten his shoulders, stand up taller.

“Who the hell are you?” her voice, hoarse, asks behind him.

He turns and raises his eyebrows, watches comprehension dawn in a pair of eyes the exact same shade as his.

“Jesus,” she breathes. “ _Jimmy_?”

He turns back and gives no reply.

“Didn't think I'd ever see _you_ here again.”

“Can't a son mourn his mother in peace?” he says, and already his accent is getting rougher, years and years of careful polishing and adapting all down the drain.

You can take the boy from the Towers...

“Thirty years too late for that, Jimmy.”

He steels himself and looks at her again.

The years haven’t been kind to her. There’s at least one inch of grey at her crown, before it fades into a cheap dye-job. She has a chain smoker's wrinkles and stained teeth, and deep circles under her eyes. Prematurely aged – she’s only ten years older than him but she looks more like she’s nearing sixty.

“You look _dreadful_ ,” he sneers.

She laughs. “And you look _posh_. Even _sound_ posh – ditched your accent, didya?”

Churchtown chasing away Ballymun, until the only traces left are in his memories. “Scrubbed it off as soon as I could,” he says, easily. “I've moved up in the world, Siobhan. All the way to the top.”

She smiles. “Always thought you would.”

She had, the only one who'd cared, who'd lent him books and talked to him about them, even when he'd moved too fast for her to follow. But only when she had time, when she wasn’t out with her friends, when she wasn’t yelling at him for fighting with her brothers, or simply for being such a weird little _freak_.

Kindness had been a commodity in that first decade.

“Why are you here, anyway?” he asks. “You never knew her.”

“Did. Before you were born, before she – went off the rails. She was nice, back then. Kind. Funny. That's what I remember of her, the fun aunt.”

“Wish I could say the same.”

“About your mam or mine?”

He smiles at her. “You mean the neglectful heroin-addicted whore or the abusive brainless bitch?”

She hisses and turns back to the stone. “I forgot how _hard_ you can be, Jimmy.” She tucks her hands into her coat. “You always were.”

“Life didn't give me much of a choice about it.” He digs into his pockets and pulls out his cigarettes – _Seb’s_ cigarettes, stolen from his coat this morning. “Get hard or get crushed, wasn't that the kind of thing she was fond of sayin’?” He taps a fag out.

“Give us a smoke, then.”

He looks sideways at her. The smell of cheap tobacco wafts from her coat, another one of those scents that instantly hurl him back twenty-five years into the past. “Still smoking that hand-rolled shite?” he asks, taking out another one.

“Cheaper,” she says, shrugging.

He lights the cigarettes and hands one over. She takes a drag and sighs. “She meant well, you know,” she says.

He scoffs. “She hated everything about me.”

“She wanted you to toughen up. You don't survive here if you don't toughen up.”

“Yeah, I still have the scars to show it.”

She falls silent. The wind blows across the graveyard.

“Sean's dead,” she says, carefully.

“Is he?” he says, staring ahead, seeing a car crash and a man crawling out of a burning wreckage, not quite dead, and the way his throat had cracked when Jim had put his foot on it.

“So's Liam. And Tommy. And Mam, of course. Everyone dead, or disappeared.” She side-eyes him. “Except me.”

“Congratulations on your health.”

“Still a sarcastic little prick, aren't you?”

“Only grown sharper with time.”

“Yeah.”

He looks up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” She takes another drag. “So, is that what this is about? Finishing the set?”

“No.” He closes his eyes and blows out a stream of smoke. “Why bother? The cigarettes will do the job, or the drugs, or the cold when you can't afford to fix the heating.” He taps ash off his cigarette. “You're dyin’, Siobhan.”

“We’re all dyin’. Some of us just go sooner than others.”

“Hm,” he says.

 _1961-1982._ And who decides when someone goes? It’s not random, it’s not fucking _fate_ , and he learned that lesson early enough.

People die. That’s what they do.

They stand in silence.

“I still remember the day you came to us, you know,” she says suddenly.

He doesn’t look away from the gravestone.

“Mam had been cursing the entire afternoon, but her eyes were red, like she’d been crying. Then the social worker turned up, with you sleepin’ in her arms.”

He glances at her. Her eyes have that distant, slightly glassy quality of people looking into the past.

“You were such a little thing,” she says, after another stream of smoke. “I remember lookin’ at you, and thinking… You were only three years younger than our Liam but you looked like a baby.”

“Malnourishment.” He stares at the gravestone. “That’s what happens when you let an addict look after a child.”

“Social worker woke you up. You didn’t say nothin’, just stared at us. And after she’d gone mam gave you a pinch, to see if you could speak. Still nothing. Just… starin’. Like a wild animal. She thought there was somethin’ wrong in your head. But then you did talk.” She takes a deep drag from her cigarette. “You know what the first word was you said to us, Jimmy?”

“No.”

“Exactly. _No_.”

He laughs. “Rejecting you right from the start, was I? Good to know I had some sense even then.”

“I loved you, you know.”

He huffs. “Not as much as you loved your brothers.”

“They were my _brothers_. And you weren’t easy to love, Jimmy.”

“You should have tried harder.” He doesn’t say it with resentment, though. In fact, he’s grateful to them for teaching him the biggest lesson of them all, nice and early. It made things easier, afterwards.

“Fuck you, Jimmy,” she says. She sounds tired. “No matter what we’ve done, none of us deserved – ”

“Don’t,” he says, voice flat, “talk to me about _deserving_.”

She looks at him. God knows what she sees in him, but he recognises the sudden fear. A staple, familiar, present in everyone who’s ever interacted with him – the real him, that is. No one can look at him without being at least a bit afraid.

No one except Sebastian.

Speaking of, he should get back.

He drops the butt of his cigarette and grinds it out.

“Going, then?” she asks.

“There’s nothing for me here, is there now?” he says, and she looks away. She looks _tired_ , above all. Life has worn her out.

Maybe that’s a family trait.

“And I don’t think there ever was,” he adds, softly, addressing the gravestone again.

_Emma Doherty._

_1961-1982._

Not even a _rest in peace_ they granted her.

“Goodbye, Siobhan,” he says, turning his back on the stone. “Enjoy what’s left of your life.”

 


	9. Sebastian

When Jim comes back it’s in a mood unlike any you’ve ever seen before.

He sinks down on the sofa like his legs can’t support him anymore and buries his head in his hands. His shoulders are shaking. If he were someone else you’d think he was crying, but he’s – he’s _Jim_ , he doesn’t cry.

You hover at the edge of the room, unsure what to do.

After a while he raises his head again and inhales deeply through his nose. His face is dry, but there’s something a little puffy around his eyes.

“Are you okay?” you ask.

He tilts his head, not looking at you, as if he’s carefully thinking about the answer. “No,” he says, “I don’t think I am. Do you?” And then he does look at you, and his face is – it’s mocking, and vulnerable, and furious and pleading and aggressive all at the same time.

He heaves out another deep breath and shakes his head, like he’s irritated at himself.

“Jim…”

“Shush.”

You shut your mouth again, staring.

He looks over his shoulder at the view. Then he stands up and crosses to you, takes your neck. “I need you to - ” He stops, swallows, then whispers, “Remind me what I am.”

There’s so many things he is – crime lord, consulting criminal, master of disguises, spider in the middle of his web – but those are words. Words don’t mean much.

You grab his chin and pull him up into a rough kiss. He goes with it, but uneasily, hands grabbing at your shoulders like he isn’t quite sure what to do.

It’s at times like this that you realise the thing you have with Jim is just a bit – well, not normal. There’s no careful consideration of different options, no conscious thought on your part – it’s just purely instinctive, and it shouldn’t be. Normal people _talk_ about this kind of thing.

You push him back and topple him down onto the bed, then follow him. You pull at his and your clothes and lean almost your full weight down on him, drowning him in skin-on-skin and weight and heat and touch, his lips soft and pliable beneath yours.

He moans and reaches blindly for the back of your head, fingers twisting in your hair, far less aggressively than usual. The noises he’s making sound more pained than anything else, and you should probably worry about that but –

Well, it’s that thing again, isn’t it? Connection, or whatever you want to call it, and whatever is making him moan like that, it doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong.

He bucks underneath you and you roll over, pull him on top. He leans down, thighs pressing against either side of your hips, and kisses you, far more gentle than either of you usually go for. You throw your arm around his back and try to pull him even closer.

He breaks the kiss and leans his head in the crook of your shoulder, breathing deeply. You shift, adjusting the position of your leg, his hips, his chest, until you’re both comfortable.

Physically, the two of you fit together like you were fucking _designed_ for it.

_Remind me what I am._

You pull his chin up and press a chaste kiss against his lips. He’s still frowning, as if he’s concentrating – or fighting something.

You sit up and drag him along, so you end up leaning against the headboard, Jim straddling your lap. His forehead is leaning against yours, his eyes closed, mouth slightly parted, hands on your neck. You breathe out, shakily.

How is it that _this_ , of all things, feels far more intimate than any other thing he’s done to you, or you to him?

You put your hands underneath his open shirt, on his waist, thumbs stroking his sides. He shivers and seems to _melt_ somehow, tension slowly seeping out of him. You reach down, slowly, carefully, and with a bit of shuffling you manage to get your hand around both his and your cock, pressed together. Another shiver, with a matching sigh, as you slowly move your hand.

_What I am._

Yours, that’s what.

You tighten your arm around his waist and roll him around again, landing him flat on his back on the bed. You smash your lips against his and close your hand around his cock and he groans, fingernails digging into your back.

“Seb,” he gasps, urging you on.

“Got this.” You press a quick light kiss against his mouth, his cheek, underneath his jaw when he tilts his head back. His feet scrabble against the mattress and his nails leave long painful trails along your back.

You reach down again. The simple friction of your hand, and his cock against yours – it might be simple but you haven’t got time for anything else, and it’s – it’s about you, and him, and you can’t pull away, can’t leave him, wouldn’t break his death grip around your ribcage if you could.

You come first, for once. His mouth on yours swallows your moans and all you’ve got to do is concentrate enough to shift your hand to his cock, keep doing what you’re doing and –

He comes with a muffled shout, going rigid in your arms.

You lower yourself carefully, making sure not to squash him and leaning most of your weight on your leg, instead of your slightly sore shoulder. Moment of truth. Did it work? Or is he still...

He sighs and closes his eyes, his arms still around you, face relaxing. “God, I needed that,” he breathes.

You smile, relieved. “Yeah, I gathered.”

You shift a bit to the side and then finally collapse, landing half on top of him. His hand moves to your head, petting lazily. “How’s the shoulder?” he asks.

“Fine, surprisingly. Bit achey still, but nothing serious.”

“Good.” He nuzzles just above your ear. “Stay here.”

“Not going anywhere.”

Pressed close like this you can hear his heartbeat. Fairly quick, but slowing down as you’re listening.

 _Remind me what I am_. Is that what you did? Is that why you’re here, to make sure he doesn’t get lost in his own head? You reach up for his shoulder and he puts his hand over yours. He makes a soft shushing noise, as if you’re the one needing comforting right now.

Which is actually kind of true.

“Are you…” you try.

“Yes. You’re… I’m fine.” He pats your shoulder and you roll off him, reluctantly.

“If you’re sure,” you say, watching him closely. He looks a lot more like – like _himself_ now, not like before, all vague and stuck somewhere he doesn’t want to be.

He nods and gets out of bed, stretches. “All myself again,” he says, with a small smile, echoing your thoughts.

“Just because of a quick fuck?”

He gives you an unimpressed look. You fold your hands behind your head and give him a lazy smile back. Just like normal, even though it all still feels a bit fragile.

“Don’t get too cocky, it’s not attractive,” he says, corner of his mouth going up.

“I disagree.”

He laughs and pads over to the desk, trousers and shirt still hanging open, his hair a mess. Looking pretty debauched.

“Cigarettes?” he asks over his shoulder.

You sit up. “Inside coat pocket.”

He disappears briefly into the hallway and comes back with a cigarette between his lips and a lighter in his hand.

You watch him light up, leaning against the window, his movements easy and practiced. You’ve never really given Jim’s smoking habit much thought, but with what you know now… Basically everyone above the age of twelve smokes on the estates, of course he picked it up.

He breathes out and looks out of the window. The sun is just going down, and the orange-yellow light coming through the window gives him a strange shadowy look.

“So?” you ask. “What’s tomorrow?”

“Airport.”

You hum and fall back onto the bed. “We’re going back, then?”

“We’re going back,” he affirms, cigarette between his fingers, eyes on Dublin.

“Good.” You push up onto your elbows to look a bit more closely at him. “Right?”

“Yeah.” He looks over his shoulder at you, and that, that’s all him, dark devouring eyes and a small superior smile and an air of absolute and utter _control_. “I’m _done_ here.”


	10. Jim

The day after they’re on the plane.

“We hope you enjoyed your stay, and on behalf of Aer Lingus wish you a pleasant flight,” the pilot says over the speakers, in a smooth pleasant South Dublin drawl. With a bit of luck it’s the last time he’s forced to hear one of those.

The plane takes off and the pressure slams him back into his seat.

When he left, all those years ago, it had been by ferry. Cheaper, easier to get into with fake papers. It hadn’t been a pleasant journey: he’d had to fend off curious – and predatory – fellow passengers the entire way across, with the added difficulty of being half-drunk on excitement and curiosity and sheer adolescent joy. And seasickness, obviously. He’d been _wrecked_ when he got back on land, starving and tired and alone, with nothing to his name but a threadbare duffel bag and a stolen leather jacket.

Now he’s in soft plush seats, complimentary glass of champagne at his right hand, Italian leather shoe tapping idly against the seat in front of him. And he’s not alone, either.

“Christ, I’ll be glad to get back home,” Sebastian says from next to him. He has already downed the champagne and is now studying the fellow passengers and the flight personnel, identifying potential threats. Probably not even _aware_ he’s doing it.

London. Home.

Jim leans his head against the small window and watches Dublin shrink down below. The Emerald Isle looks more brown and grey from this height, old and dirty and polluted.

“Bye,” he whispers softly, just like he had sixteen years ago, leaning on the railing of the ferry, watching the coast disappear, swallowed by the sea.

He came back. He survived. And he isn’t the kid he was back then, not anymore.

The speakers ping and Sebastian opens his seatbelt with obvious relief. He never did like being restrained – the obvious excepted, of course.

His hand touches Jim’s wrist, gentle as can be. “You alright?” he asks, calm and businesslike.

Jim nods. Seb squeezes his arm, a little jolt of physical reassurance, and then he yawns and sinks back deeper into his chair.

Jim bites his lip, an old childish habit. He is, isn’t he? Alright? More or less, for the moment, as well as he could be given the circumstances, that sort of thing. He’s alright. He’s fine. He has done what he had to and he has come back unharmed.

Labyrinth burnt. Ghosts put to rest. And all traces erased.

With one decisive gesture he closes the sun shade, then leans into Sebastian’s shoulder and closes his eyes.

He survived.

 

 

 

 

 _What if I look upon a man_  
 _As though on my beloved_  
 _And my blood be cold the while_  
 _And my heart unmoved_  
 _Why should he think me cruel_  
 _Or that he is betrayed_  
 _I'd have him love the thing I was  
_ _Before the world was made_

 (W.B. Yeats)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Ballymun** : One of the rougher areas in Dublin. There used to be seven fifteen-storeys high tower blocks, built in the 60's, but as part of an attempt to regenerate the area they were planned to be demolished, starting in 2004. Only one of them is still up today.  
>  **Churchtown** : Where Andrew Scott is from, and consequently the accent Jim Moriarty has on the show. Comes with upper-middle class connotations.


End file.
